incipient species

Species \Spe"cies\, n. sing. & pl. [L., a sight, outward
   appearance, shape, form, a particular sort, kind, or quality,
   a species. See {Spice}, n., and cf. {Specie}, {Special}.]
   1. Visible or sensible presentation; appearance; a sensible
      percept received by the imagination; an image. [R.] "The
      species of the letters illuminated with indigo and
      violet." --Sir I. Newton.
      [1913 Webster]

            Wit, . . . the faculty of imagination in the writer,
            which searches over all the memory for the species
            or ideas of those things which it designs to
            represent.                            --Dryden.
      [1913 Webster]

   Note: In the scholastic philosophy, the species was sensible
         and intelligible. The sensible species was that in any
         material, object which was in fact discerned by the
         mind through the organ of perception, or that in any
         object which rendered it possible that it should be
         perceived. The sensible species, as apprehended by the
         understanding in any of the relations of thought, was
         called an intelligible species. "An apparent diversity
         between the species visible and audible is, that the
         visible doth not mingle in the medium, but the audible
         doth." --Bacon.
         [1913 Webster]

   2. (Logic) A group of individuals agreeing in common
      attributes, and designated by a common name; a conception
      subordinated to another conception, called a genus, or
      generic conception, from which it differs in containing or
      comprehending more attributes, and extending to fewer
      individuals. Thus, {man} is a species, under {animal} as a
      genus; and man, in its turn, may be regarded as a genus
      with respect to {European}, {American}, or the like, as
      species.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. In science, a more or less permanent group of existing
      things or beings, associated according to attributes, or
      properties determined by scientific observation.
      [1913 Webster]

   Note: In mineralogy and chemistry, objects which possess the
         same definite chemical structure, and are fundamentally
         the same in crystallization and physical characters,
         are classed as belonging to a species. In Zoology and
         botany, a species is an ideal group of individuals
         which are believed to have descended from common
         ancestors, which agree in essential characteristics,
         and are capable of indefinitely continued fertile
         reproduction through the sexes. A species, as thus
         defined, differs from a variety or subspecies only in
         the greater stability of its characters and in the
         absence of individuals intermediate between the related
         groups.
         [1913 Webster]

   4. A sort; a kind; a variety; as, a species of low cunning; a
      species of generosity; a species of cloth.
      [1913 Webster]

   5. Coin, or coined silver, gold, or other metal, used as a
      circulating medium; specie. [Obs.]
      [1913 Webster]

            There was, in the splendor of the Roman empire, a
            less quantity of current species in Europe than
            there is now.                         --Arbuthnot.
      [1913 Webster]

   6. A public spectacle or exhibition. [Obs.] --Bacon.
      [1913 Webster]

   7. (Pharmacy)
      (a) A component part of a compound medicine; a simple.
      (b) (Med.) An officinal mixture or compound powder of any
          kind; esp., one used for making an aromatic tea or
          tisane; a tea mixture. --Quincy.
          [1913 Webster]

   8. (Civil Law) The form or shape given to materials; fashion
      or shape; form; figure. --Burill.
      [1913 Webster]

   {Incipient species} (Zool.), a subspecies, or variety, which
      is in process of becoming permanent, and thus changing to
      a true species, usually by isolation in localities from
      which other varieties are excluded.
      [1913 Webster]